Long Goodbyes
by broadwaybear
Summary: That awkward moment when you realize that you're moving on and your best friend isn't coming with you. "Fast Friends" was how I thought they met. This is how I think they end. I got a little upset writing it.


Summary: That awkward moment when you realize that you're moving on and your best friend isn't coming with you. A companion piece to "Fast Friends", which was my idea of how they met. This is the end. Just watched Batman: Under the Red Hood which has me in a sad kind of mood. I wrote Fast Friends while I was away with the band and feeling happy and making new friends of my own. Hopefully you can tell what influences me when I write.

Long Goodbyes

Dick Grayson carefully, reverently placed the bright red suit in its case. He brushed the soft fabric encasing the light-weight protective plating, made supple and movable by sheer will power and years of use, trying to remember the good times and not the bad that led to this moment. He inhaled the familiar scent, traced the black "R" and recalled as he always did how the name came to be and all the meaning it held to him. The past and the soon-to-be past were all wrapped up in the simply piece of cloth and metal. He hung it on the proper manikin, right next to his last two suits, the ones he had long since grown out of. He did this all for the last time.

He allowed the glass case to slide closed and then stared at the new reflection that appeared before him. Tall, dark -maybe a touch ominous, if he did say so himself- the black made him look fearsome and the striking blue over his chest separated him in so many ways from the original black-clad hero. He took a shaky breath and straightened a little. This was him now. He'd grown out of his last Robin suit and it was time for a change.

A familiar rush of air made him grin devilishly at his reflection. He was confident, however, that somethings would never change.

"I like the new look."

This was said through a mouth full of food -cookies, probably- which muffled the normally deep, suave (the speedster liked to think so at least) voice of none other than Kid Flash. Dick's best friend of nearly thirteen years. "Much less flashy, much more suited to your habit of sneaking around and generally just freaking people out."

Dick turned and grinned at his brother-in-arms. "Me? Sneak? I can't fathom why you'd say such things."

KF laughed at him in that genial way he had, the one that told Dick something was on his ginger haired friend's mind. "Hey," the speedster said, and suddenly he was up close to the glass case, looking at the second Robin suit, Dick didn't even flinch, much too used to his friend's antics. "This is the one you wore back when we first started Young Justice. Remember how you used to make up words?"

Dick laughed and mock-defensively replied, "I didn't make up words, I just utilized ones that most people didn't know about."

"Aster?" KF asked rhetorically with a raised eyebrow. Dick answered anyway.

"The opposite of _dis_aster, obviously."

They laughed together this time, the joke old and common between them, but it never seemed to stop being funny. The laughter stopped after a moment and Kid Flash looked around the Batcave, mildly interested. "Been a while since I was here." he said nostalgically, "Back when we played 'extreme tag' and ragged on our mentors behind their backs. Place hasn't changed much."

"Bats doesn't really _do_ change." Dick answered shortly, with just a little too much venom in his voice. Kid Flash looked at him worriedly.

"Where is old Batsy anyway?" the ginger speedster asked, "He always knows when there's supers around who 'don't belong in his city'."

Dick sighed and pulled at his new, still-stiff suit a little. "Avoiding me, probably." The younger man sighed and moved to collapse in a swivel chair in front of the super computer. "We fought."

Kid Flash- no, Wally West sat down in a chair next to him and tentatively asked what the fight was about. He said it in a way that told Dick he already knew, but didn't want to admit it. Dick answered slowly. "I'm leaving." Instead of trying to look surprised Wally simply looked away, at the floor, at the walls anything but meeting his friend's mask-covered eyes. "I told him and he took it badly. Like I knew he would. But somehow, even knowing it would be bad, the anger still hurt."

"Well," Wally said, in a tone that was a little more argumentative than usual. "Of course he is. He taught you everything and you're leaving him, just like that."

Dick shot his best friend an incredulous look and was unable to keep the hurt out of his voice. "'Just like that!' I'm twenty-two years old! I just graduated college! I can't wear green and red and be the shadow of a shadow for the rest of my life!" He nearly leaped out of his chair and began pacing around the room. "I mean, seriously Wally, don't you ever get sick of always being _Kid_ Flash. You're twenty-four!"

Wally nodded slowly, trying to come to terms with his friend's feelings. "No, but at the same time... I can't leave Barry. He's _The_ Flash and he always will be. What am I supposed to do? Replace him?"

"No- but... Forget it." Dick turned away from him, trying to disguise how upset he was.

"I won't 'forget it' Dick!" Wally insisted, "What do you plan on doing? Abandoning the man who raised you, who _made_ you? Abandoning Young Justice and all of your friends? To do what? Where will you go?"

"I'm not abandoning _anyone_." Dick snapped and it was an actual effort not to yell it. "Why don't you get it? I _know_ Batman 'made me' and I will always love him and be grateful to him, but you know what? My parents made me too, everything they taught me before they- before they were..." it was still hard for the former sidekick to talk about his life before Batman. "For that matter, Tony Zucco made me, too. But in the end all it means is that I'm _not Batman_. And I can't figure out who I _am_ if I'm always following him. Young Justice is thirty members strong, they don't _need_ me. Yes I was a founding member, but so were M'gann and Superboy and they left for Mars. So was Kal when he went home to Atlantis to protect the prince. Nobody accused them of abandoning anyone when they left. Supergirl has been training to take my place for three years now. She's more than capable of taking charge when I'm gone. I've already told her."

He stopped suddenly, breathing just a touch heavier than normal, locking gazes with his friend, who blankly stared back, not sure whether to be amazed that the younger boy had put this much thought into it or terrified. Wally West was loosing his best friend. The ginger took a deep breath and quietly replied, "And where will you go? You never answered that."

Dick sighed and shrugged, clearly having used up most of his fighting energy in his last big speech or maybe, after fighting with everyone he knew and cared about, he just didn't have the heart any more. "I don't know." he admitted, "I'll wander around for a little while, see where I can be useful. I'll find my own city to protect. But Dick Grayson is completely cutting himself off from Bruce Wayne. No more trust funds, no more bank accounts filled just in the nick of time. I'm taking the money I earned myself and that's it."

Kid Flash nodded silently, processing that. He stared intently at the floor, wishing he could think of some other reason for Dick to stay behind. He hadn't even finished that thought when Dick suddenly spoke again, voice small and hopeful, almost reminding him of the ten year old boy he'd met so long ago.

"You could come with me you know." Kid Flash's gaze immediately shot to his friend's hopeful face, genuinely surprised. Even with the number of scenarios of how this could possibly end had run through his head, skipping town _with_ his best friend was not one of them. "I mean, think about it. We've always made a good team. We've had each other's back since the day we met. We could get new names, find a new city. We could really make a difference somewhere that needs _us_. Not our mentors who happened to bring us along."

Kid Flash struggled to find a good argument, one that fully explained his indecision. When he couldn't, he simply avoided the question. "C'mon man. You know that last one's extreme. We've both been working solo for years now. So what if most people still connect us with our mentors? We have plenty of time to prove that we're more than that."

Dick shook his head sadly at his friend's mumbled reply. Even before he said the words, he knew it would never happen. Kid Flash was his uncle's boy, always had been. Dick didn't begrudge him that, he just wished he didn't have to leave KF behind with everyone else. The newly darkened hero sighed and said, "It's okay, man. You don't have to explain it to me." he reached out a hand to his friend. A truce. "But that won't change my mind."

Kid Flash grasped the proffered hand firmly. He had faced down supervillains most people hadn't dreamed of in their worst nightmares. He'd lost family members. He'd brushed death more times than he cared to count. He would not cry.

They released the brief almost-hand-shake and Dick suddenly smiled and out of the blue, wacked Wally on the back of the head. "Now get out of here before Batman finds out you're in his territory, you crazy, soulless, speed demon of a ginger."

"Hey!" Wally cried in mock offense. "That's crazy, soulless, _idiotic_ speed demon of a ginger, you ugly, birdbrained ninja wannabe!"

Dick laughed an easy laugh and leaped from where they were standing straight onto his freshly painted motorcycle. Sometimes, when you suddenly realize that things you always thought would be aren't anymore, it was better not to stop and give them too much consideration. Like when you think that your best friend will be your best friend for life only to discover that all things change over time.

Wally laughed with him. "I'll race you out!" he called and didn't even wait for a reply, he just moved into a starting position and prepared to give Dick the usual three second head start. Dick was about to turn the ignition and rev the engine when Wally stopped him a second time.

"Hey, Dick." he said, slowly, cautiously. "If you aren't Robin... Who are you now?"

Dick didn't even hesitate, he just gave his friend what he hoped was a reassuring smile and answered. "I don't know yet, Wally. But if you ever wanna look me up, try Nightwing."

Kid Flash nodded and said purposefully. "I will. See you around. Nightwing.

"Of course. Later, Kid Flash." The lies rolled off their tongues surprisingly easily. Because Kid Flash wouldn't look up Nightwing and Nighwing knew there would be no 'later'. And then the stranger with the face of an old friend was gone in a burst of exhaust and wind.

Because no matter what words they said to each other, their relationship would never be the same. Because _Robin_ had always been Kid Flash's best friend. Because the last four years Dick had spent away at college had really just been one long, slow goodbye as they both grew out of the people they were and changed into the people the hoped to be and they knew it. Memories, regrets, laughs, sorrows, these were all that was left of what they had been. All these thoughts flashed through both their heads in the three and a half seconds it took them to reach the fresh air outside the Batcave. They came out of the long tunnel -made longer by the knowledge it was the last time they would ever race through it together- in a burst that broke the sound barrier at exactly the same moment, flying at a speed unknown to most of man kind, both headed confidently towards the future.

But for the first time, they were headed in different directions.


End file.
